Gentoo Install Report: sagetv-server_9.0.12_amd64

[GrantEdwards]

I thought I'd post a brief installation report for any other Gentoo
users who are thinking about installing SageTV9 in order to update
their OS installation from 32-bit to 64-bit.

Server Install

For the most part the server "just works". First I re-installed Gentoo
the usual way using the default amd64 profile. I then installed the
usually desktop stuff (X11, openbox, Firefox, mplayer, emacs, mutt,
slrn).

My SageTV9 install went like this:

1. Install Java 1.8 JDK. I used icedtea-bin-3.2.0. Preliminary
   testing on a different 64-bit Gentoo system indicated that the
   SageTV server worked with this one, I don't know about other JDKs
   or JREs.
   
   .
2. Move old /opt/sagetv/server directory to /opt/sagetv/server.old
   
   .
3. Create a new, empty /opt/sagetv/server directory
   
   .
4. Unpack sagetv-server_9.0.12_amd64.tar.gz into /opt/sagetv/server
   [downloaded from https://dl.bintray.com/opensagetv/sagetv/sagetv/]
   
   .
5. Run ldd against the unpacked libraries (which were built on an
   Ubuntu system by the packager) to see what libraries you may be
   missing:
   
   

           $ cd /opt/sagetv/server
           $ LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$PWD ldd *.so *.so.* | egrep '(^lib|not found)'
           libDVBCapture.so:
           libFirewireCapture.so:
           	libiec61883.so.0 => not found
           	libraw1394.so.11 => not found
           	libavc1394.so.0 => not found
           libFreetypeFontJNI.so:
           libHDHomeRunCapture.so:
           libImageLoader.so:
           libIVTVCapture.so:
           libJavaRemuxer2.so:
           libjtux.so:
           libMpeg2Transcoder.so:
           libMPEGParser.so:
           libNativeCore.so:
           libPVR150Input.so:
           libSage.so:
           libswscale.so:
           libTSnative.so:
           libavcodec-minimal.so.52:
           libavformat-minimal.so.52:
           libavutil-minimal.so.50:

   As seen above on my system, I'm missing a few libraries needed by
   libFirewireCapture.so. But, I'm not using firewire, so the server
   works fine without those libraries. If you can't get the server
   to work, try installing whatever libraries are required to make
   all of the sagetv .so files happy.
   
   .
6. If you want to continue using your SageTV key to access TV
   schedule data from the service provided by SageTV/Google, copy
   your old 'activekey' file into your new server directory. The key
   is no longer required to run the server itself. [Remember that
   that SageTV/Google schedule data is going to be turned off in July
   2017.]
   
   At this point, you should be able to copy your old Wiz.bin and
   Sage.properties files into the new 'server' directory, start the
   server and you're done.
   
   But, for no particular reason, I decided to configure the new
   server from scratch then later restore my
   recordings/favorites:
   
   .
7. Start the server. I use an openrc init.d script that looks like
   this:
   

           #!/sbin/openrc-run
           
           depend() {
           	need net localmount
           	after bootmisc
           }
           
           start() {
           	echo "Starting SageTV Server"
                   if /opt/sagetv/server/startsage && sleep 1; then
                   echo OK
                   else
                   echo Fail
                   fi
           }
           
           stop () {
           	echo "Stopping SageTV Backend"
                   if /opt/sagetv/server/stopsage; then
                   echo OK
                   else
                   echo Fail
                   fi
           }

   If you use systemd instead of openrc, you can probably grab the
   service file out of the .deb file and use that.
   
   .
8. Connect to the server using a client (I tried a linux client, and
   an HD200 set-top-box, and both worked). Configure the sources,
   recording directories, etc.
   
   .
9. Shut down the client and stop the server.
   
   .
10. Copy the old Wiz.bin file into the new server directory.
    
    .
11. Start the server.
    
    .
12. Connect to the server with a client. All the old recordings
    should be there along with favorites and recording schedules.

Linux Client

I've also tried running the linux client from
sagetv-client_9.0.12_amd64.tar.gz. The basic UI worked fine, and
allowed me to configure the server at step 8 above. But, playback
failed.

I ran the ldd command as shown above, and the libraries all looked OK
except for a missing libjawt.so. But, that should be provided by the
JDK, so I ignored it. When I ran ldd on the mplayer binary, it listed
a couple libraries I didn't have (libaudio.so, libpng12.so), so I
installed those (media-libs/nas and media-libs/libpng:1.2).

Now playback psuedo-works: it starts, audio works, and the UI with the
progress bar and controls does what it's supposed to. But, picture is
black. I tried a few different client option configurations, but it
didn't seem to help.

Server Build From Git Sources

I've also tried building the SageTV server on Gentoo from git sources
by following the instructions at https://github.com/google/sagetv/wiki.

I haven't gotten very far yet. The build fails almost immediately due
to some sort of SSL certificate problem:

    $ ./buildall.sh
    Build the Sage.jar file
    Bulding Sage.jar...
    Downloading https://services.gradle.org/distribu...le-2.6-all.zip

    Exception in thread "main" javax.net.ssl.SSLHandshakeException: sun.security.validator.ValidatorException: PKIX path validation failed: java.security.cert.CertPathValidatorException: signature check failed

In another thread where somebody was working on an ebuild, I notice
that they download the Sage.jar file rather than build it from
sources...

Yow. Too bad bbcode produces such awful output. This would have
looked a lot better using almost any other lightweight markup system.
I find that the lack of vertical space between bbcode list items is a
particularly bad decision. And we won't even start on the broken
Unicode support. But then again, it's part of PHP....

[GrantEdwards]

FWIW...

After a couple days use, I have noticed a problem with this version.

When I'm connected via an HD200, and I use [Left] or [Back] buttons to
return to the top level menu (e.g. from the TV menu), the server will
often crash.

I haven't noticed any problems while I'm in one of the sub-menus (I
can browse and watch TV shows, look at the recording schedule, etc.),
but simply trying to return back to the main menu often (but not quite
always) crashes the server.

This is a bit annoying but isn't a huge issue, since once I'm in the
TV menu, I usually stay there until I shut off the HD200 (which
doesn't seem to cause a problem). It was a bit clumsy when I was
tweaking some setup values, since it means when you're doing editing
things in the setup menu, you have to turn off the HD200 and then turn
it back on again to reliably get to the main menu. Hitting back will
usually crash the server and lose changes that you made.

[Narflex]

Feel free to post the logs from that crash.

[GrantEdwards]

Originally Posted by Narflex

Feel free to post the logs from that crash.

Of course it happened just like it does when I ask my customers to send logs or test data after they make some vague complaint about a problem...

I shut down the server, removed all of the old log/msg files and then restarted the server.

Now I can't get it to crash.

I should have copied the old error logs somewhere...

[Fuzzy]

Originally Posted by GrantEdwards

Of course it happened just like it does when I ask my customers to send logs or test data after they make some vague complaint about a problem...

I shut down the server, removed all of the old log/msg files and then restarted the server.

Now I can't get it to crash.

I should have copied the old error logs somewhere...

Sage will keep the 4 most recent log files (if you don't delete them, of course).